Desolate Unfolding
by Samurai101
Summary: SPOILERS FOR CHAPTER 550::COMPLETE:: Another take on the Uchiha tragedy: A plan starts to unravel. Decisions must be made. The transition from child to adult is never easy, but it is something to watch. ::Warnings inside::
1. Cracking the Shell

**A/N:** I feel this madness needs a quick disclaimer. There are HUGE spoilers for chapter 550. That said, this is the second time my view of Itachi has been turned on its head. This bumbling monstrosity is my attempt to sort out details in my head of what _really_ happened. I do not claim to be anywhere near the truth, but I had fun writing this. It's an experimentation of characterization as well, so beware. :)

This is self-edited a few times. There will be mistake, feel free to tell me about them. The rating is for some disturbing scenes with Madara that I didn't feel quite comfortable being labelled as 'Teen', even if they're probably not that bad. This fic will also go up on my livejournal account(link in profile). If you want to ask questions, it's easier for me to answer them here. :3

Last bit of fun before I'm back to school. 3 Hope it amuses you!

* * *

><p>"Ninja are not heroes. Heroes are people who save lives, not those who take them." Shisui sat on his futon as he spoke. They had notes spread all over the room and a huge map of the Uchiha compound pinned to the wall and covered in push pin dots. Shisui looked up at Itachi. "Even if you stop a war, killing them won't make you a hero."<p>

"Why would I want to be a hero for killing my family?" Itachi asked. He winced as Shisui smacked him on the forehead with a scroll.

"Don't think of them like that or you'll never be able to do it." Shisui pointed the scroll at Itachi's forehead, and Itachi nodded. He had to or Shisui would smack him harder. He knew Shisui was right anyway. Itachi pushed his bangs back from his face and then just buried his face in his hands. He took a few moments to breath. Sometimes, even though they'd been hassling with the problem for a year and talked about how _this_might happen for a few months, it still felt overwhelming. There were too many variables. They needed to simplify things, but you couldn't add things back in once you'd taken them away in this situation. You never knew for certain how things would turn out.

Praying and hoping wouldn't cut it. Itachi didn't think there were any gods or guardian spirits that would listen to a killers pleas anyway.

"I'll be there to help you. You know I will." Shisui placed the scroll down, this time placing his head on Itachi's head. "You know I won't leave you alone."

Given Shisui had been the only constant in Itachi's life since he was two, it seemed obvious to Itachi and unnecessary. Shisiu would always be there. "I know."

If there was anyone he trusted without a doubt it was Shisui. He was more than a parent or a brother. He'd been Itachi's idol for ages, but, now, as Itachi grew older and could actually compete with Shisui, he was turning into something much better. The slow change of their relationship was both frightening and exciting. They were almost equals, and while shedding the skin of a follower was painful, the position had started to chafe.

"I'll try to talk them around again. We've got another meeting," Shisui pushed his crazy hair behind his ear. He was actually going grey in places. Shisui hadn't noticed it yet, but Itachi had. He'd also started getting creases in his face that got deeper as the months went by.

"What were they stuck on last time?" Itachi shifted through more papers.

"The Registry law." Shisui rubbed his face. "They want it completely altered. All the clans have to follow that one. Sarutobi agreed to drop the housing restriction and Fugaku-sama even agreed to open up the police force, but then they started in on the Registry law..." Shisui shook his head. "Changing that would take _years_." And they didn't have years. The year they had was dwindling into something like months. Maybe weeks. Itachi felt nervous all over again. Trying to talk out the problem between their stiff-necked clan and the rigid Konoha wouldn't work, and they both knew it by now. They still played at the idea, running to it like a child would run to hide behind his mother's skirts in the face of a storm.

"Okay, look at the maps." Shisui spread one out. Itachi did. The sprawl of the compound was a logistical nightmare. How could they get this done? "Everyone has to be killed in the same night, preferably within three hours of each other. We have to do it _silently_, or it will turn into a war." Genius they might be, but more than half of their clan had fought in the war. While the Uchiha were weakening in number and ability, they were still a clan full of ferocious fighters.

Itachi pursed his lips. "But."

"But?" They'd been playing devil's advocate for all of this stuff for so long it wasn't even funny.

"What about the children?"

Shisui sighed-the long, aggravated sigh of a man almost pushed past his limits. "Itachi-"

"The ones young enough not to know-how can we kill them?" Itachi pressed. "They don't deserve it. They're innocent."

"If you leave the kids alive, they'll just want revenge on us, and the Uchiha clan will be built on blood again." Shisui looked up. "We've been over this. That can't happen again."

"No, listen, not if Konoha supports them in seeking revenge. Then they foster a relationship based on a mutual enemy and seeking justice. It would work. The clan doesn't have to be wiped out. It just needs to be cleansed." Itachi shifted forward. "There'll be trust. The clan will feel Konoha's on their side, and Konoha can stop feeling threatened because the clan will be so reduced."

"How many kids would you spare, Itachi? Where would you draw the line? You're only thirteen but you know. There are kids younger than you who would guess what had happened. Uchiha kids are smart and brutal, Itachi, you know that." Shisui pointed out. "If you pick the wrong one, all of our work isn't going to be for anything." Shisui wouldn't let that happen. Itachi didn't want it to happen either, but…

"Sasuke has no idea."

"Sasuke." Shisui sighed. "Always Sasuke."

"I can't kill him Shisui. I _can't_. Not even for Konoha, not for you. Please don't ask me too." Itachi begged softly.

"And if I killed him?"

The thought was ice water in Itachi's veins. He knew Shisui would do it. He also knew how he would react to it. He looked up at Shisui, who looked back without betraying anything. Itachi felt a hot shame creeping up his neck as Shisui dissected him with that look.

"You're not so different from them, are you?" Shisui's voice was soft, and Itachi hung his head.

"He's just a kid." It sounded like an excuse, and it was. A deflection.

"You've killed children before."

"Shisui-_Please_." He didn't want to argue this again and be pinned to the wall with Shisui's logic. Itachi fisted his hands and willed the flush to go away. He hated the way Shisui could make him feel sometimes with even a hint of disapproval. It had never bothered him before, but the last few months he'd stopped buckling under the admonishments and resented them. "I can't kill my brother. I can't. He's..." He was Sasuke.

"There aren't many younger than Sasuke." Shisui reasoned slowly. There had been kids born, but any with a defect has been exposed and left for dead. The Uchiha had no time for weaklings, especially with the clan the way it was now, but it seemed the inbreeding had caught up to them. Many born were imperfect.

"I can think of five right now. I know six people are expecting..." How many would carry to term? How many would be perfect enough for the Uchiha? They didn't have time to wait for all of them. Itachi felt ill. He...he didn't want to kill the young. He didn't want to damn the growing lives struggling in women's bellies. Who was he to dictate who would live and who would die? He was a man—a child—not a god.

"Hey." Shisui flicked his forehead. "Eyes on me, brat." Itachi rubbed his forehead, the familiar rebuke had him sitting on his heels and taking deep breaths. His eyes were on Shisui's. Shisui's powerful eyes that could bend a mind to its will without them even noticing. Itachi knew he could be under Shisui's genjustu, but he knew he wasn't. It wouldn't much matter if he was. He was totally Shisui's creature to begin with. Shisui had formed him, made him, loved him.

"Anyone younger than Sasuke, okay?" Shisui conceded. Itachi nodded, letting all of the tension run out of him. "You know what that means. We'll have to play the demons, Itachi. Your brother...he'll have to hate you."

"Better that then dead." Itachi's guts twisted at the thought of Sasuke hating him, but what could he do? They were backed into so many corners now, they had to cut some things to get out.

"No, you have to make him hate you, Itachi. He adores you just as much as you love him, and you'll have to convince him with everything you have that _you are evil_. That you're the monster." Shisui's hard eyes drilled into Itachi's soul.

"I understand." Itachi nodded, looking away from Shisui. He glanced at the sun. It was past noon. "I need to meet Madara."

Shisui's face twisted. "Okay. Be careful. Are you sure you can manage him?"

"Yes, I can." Itachi stood up. and leaned his hands on Shisui's shoulders and pressed his forehead to Shisui's. "You worry too much. I am the Uchiha genius. Perfect in every way." Itachi stood with that mocking statement. He stepped off the futon, dancing around the notes of destruction and plotting and conjecture that littered the room. Those papers...all those scrolls and scrawl were the sum of Itachi's life. Everything was bound up in them.

He wanted to set them on fire and watch them burn.

"Itachi."

Itachi stopped at the door and turned his head to look at Shisui. With a flicker, Shisui stood behind Itachi. His quick hands pulled Itachi's hair down, finger combing it smooth in a ten count before he tied it back up with deft fingers. "You can't go out like that. People will think I don't take care of you."

Itachi glared over his shoulder. So much for being equals! Shisui's smile was benign as his hand fell to Itachi's shoulder and squeezed. He flicked the bell he'd somehow attached to Itachi's hair ribbon-an old joke. Also a good luck charm, and the way Shisui had kept track of Itachi during the war years when the air was too thick with smoke and soot to see.

_Be careful. Be safe. Enemies are everywhere._

Itachi hurried out the door and down the stairs of Shisui's small apartment. He hit the road running. There wasn't much time.

* * *

><p>"It is very sad you are so content to be a pawn."<p>

Sweating and disheveled, Itachi looked up at Madara. His body stung all over with fatigue small cuts, and larger bruises. Itachi didn't waste the breath to ask Madara what he meant. The old man sat on a stump, his hands limp but still deadly as he'd proven by tossing Itachi around the woodland clearing as if Itachi were a ragdoll. Itachi could hear the whistle of Madara's breathing, as much as the man tried to pretend he wasn't affected by the strenuous exercise. Itachi felt a smirk pull at his lips.

"You smelled like your cousin when you came." Madara's visible eye shot through Itachi and tried to crack him open.

"I thought the Uchiha were renowned for their eyes, not their sense of smell, Ojii-sama." Itachi replied smoothly. It was hard to do that while gasping for aching breath. "You'll have to teach me this new skill you've mastered." _Nosy old biddy._

"Oh, you look like him all the time-" Madara caught Itachi's started protest with a flick of his bony fingers. "The way you stand, Itachi-kun. The very way you move and breath mimics your cousin. I do wish you'd grow out from under his shadow. You are better than him."

"Aaaah," Itachi pulled himself to his feet, allowing the wince to run through his body. His back ached abominably today. One day, when Madara threw him down, Itachi was going to snap like a dry twig. "This is the start to another Mangekyou speech, Ojii-sama?"

Madara spread his hands. "A speech for freedom. Your wings-your gorgeous wings, Itachi-kun. Did you even know you had them?-are chained down by Konoha and your cousin's domineering ideology. You'll never fly until you shake them off."

Despite his age, Madara was quick. Itachi didn't even blink as he found the old man close. Heat radiated from him. He smelled of musk and some dark spice that tickled at the back of Itachi's throat. His hand caressed Itachi's jaw line and his neck. Itachi's body shivered at the jolt of adrenaline from fingers dragging on his pale throat. His lips thinned from the jitter of _pleasure_from the soft intimacy of the touch.

"My poor little cripple."

If the man has lips, they were cracked and broken from the poison that flowed out of them. As Madara inclined his head, his heavy tangles of hair fell over his shoulder. Itachi's red eyes flicked to watch them, his hand lax at his sides.

"I don't need the Mangekyou to be great, Ojii-sama. I already am." Itachi breathed the words softly.

"How limited your vision." Madara's finger flicked against Itachi's chin, tilting his head up. Itachi had always wondered if Madara could create genjutsu with a touch. It would explain so much. So very much. "Are you frightened of the terror you could be, my child? Does it make you shake? Does it make your heart pound with frightened anticipation, my poor little cripple?"

Itachi's heart pounded under Madara's touch. The ancient man's hands burned like a furnace through Itachi clothes. Itachi might as well have been naked in front of the man. Wasn't he already? Stripped and bared and spread-eagle vulnerable on the forest floor, waiting for his master's next command? His teacher's bidding?

"Shisui serves me better alive. The Mangekyou will be the compensation for losing him," Itahci murmured the words, not daring to risk his voice against something more forceful. His heart thudded. Tump. Tump. Tump. Shisui's name didn't slow it. It didn't calm him as it once had.

"Oh, but you serve him, scrambling in his shadow and falling at his feet. I see it. You're too soft to kill him. Too attached to your weakness." Madara chuckled, the rustle of dead reeds on a dry river bank. "How adorably human of you, my cripple." Itachi felt the burning touch on his side, sliding along the skin and ribs where a man might shove a knife in and kill in an instant.

_Here. Now you're dead._

"We act in tandem. We have the same goals."

"You do, because you can't see anything but him." A finger drawn up his spine, counting each vertebra. Itachi thought of all the injuries each one crushed would cause. His eyes were on the sky. "You'd even kill your parents for him."

"They're only my parents in name." That was spat with venom. His parents...those who had formed his flesh half way and then dumped him into the arms of a child. He couldn't think of them with any affection even after all these years.

"Aaaaah, now we found the crux of it." There was the vibration of amusement in his voice. "You're so devoted to him, you can't even see the hold he has on you…Shisui and his magic eyes."

"He doesn't have me under a genjutsu." Itachi counted the clouds as they hurried by. Madara's fingers tapped the base of his skull. Instant death.

"He doesn't have to. It's all much more _powerful_than that. The influence of a parent over a child, the beloved over the lover, the mentor over the student is a terrible things. Your every thought is subject to his forming, and you, having served his whims so long, think them to be yours.

"But you know it's not." Madara moved to Itachi's side, drawing his hand around Itachi's neck. "You feel his ideology rattle against who you really are. It makes you feel out of tune. You're not like Shisui, are you, my child? You are your parent's offspring." Madara stood behind Itachi as he spoke. Itachi felt a nervous sweat start up on the back of his neck. "What would you sound like—what song would you sing with your flesh and mind if you were finally in tune, my poor cripple?"

"Shisui raised me. Shisui made me what I am." Itachi didn't turn. "He's made me better than any of you."

"And you won't let me drag you down." The man stepped closer. Itachi's body shuddered.

"That's the only reason I'm here and not telling everyone about your presence. If I were my parent's child, I'd be in their meetings, planning how to break the world over my desires. You wouldn't have this chance to mold me. Perhaps you should thank him." Itachi's voice stopped as he felt Madara's fingers loop around his neck.

"Oh no, we would meet in any universe with any variables. You're drawn to me, _my_little cripple. Despite your cousin's influence, you desire what I can give you. You want power. You crave it." The calloused pads of Madara's fingers pressed along Itachi's pulse. Itachi tensed, excitement and fear singing through him. "So your cousin makes you a better being. So you can save the world.

"What about Sasuke? Is he better? Is he different from all the others?"

"Of course." Itachi relaxed his throat for the tightening of Madara's fingers, so they sank into his unresisting flesh. _Yield. Draw him in. Then finish him._

"Why? He was raised by your parents. He's you without Shisui. You without your cousins word's and thoughts to shape you away from the Uchiha depravity. Why is he so different from you? So better? Because you love him?" Madara's hand moved up and laced around Itachi's mouth, pressing his lips back against his teeth. "But he is you, stripped of the genius infusion of Shisui. Do you know how you cousin benefited you in never telling you what you couldn't do? He allowed you to grow so quickly. He allowed you to race when other would have demanded you crawl-but don't give him all the credit. He would have been the ruin of any other child. Anyone else would have crashed and shattered, but not you.

"You, my darling cripple, flew. And then you let him clip your wings." Madara's voice crackled in his ear like a roaring fire. "What an idiot you are. A blinded idiot." Madara's hand ran up his face, across his eyes. They pulled Itachi's bangs back from his face. "Now open your eyes and see the truth."

Itachi opened his eyes, but the world hadn't changed. "Sasuke's not like me."

"No, you had Shisui to mold you. Sasuke has your parents." Madara pulled Itachi's hair back and smoothed the boy's hair. The bell in his ponytail jangled softly in his ear. "Sasuke will be just another Uchiha, and all your righteous planning will come to not."

Itachi whipped around, kunai in hand, eyes blazing. He didn't make it. Madara turned with him, and Itachi hit the ground on his hands and knees. One of Madara's hands was knotting in the hair at the back of his head. The other rested heavy between Itachi's shoulder blades as the old man weighed Itachi down to earth.

"No, my cripple, let me show you what it means to have absolute power over every aspect of your opponent." The hot whisper fell like a sensation over Itachi's bared neck and slid into his throat.

Itachi's body shuddered. He head bowed for the coming torment, and he promised, this time, he wouldn't scream or beg.

* * *

><p>"Ashes and death, Itachi. You're covered in bruises."<p>

Itachi snatched his knees up against his chest and sank down into the water. "I'm also bathing."

"When did you get so shy?" Shisui sat down on the rim of the tub. He was dressed carefully his father's heavy ring on his finger. He smelled rich and fake. He passed his hand over Itachi's head. Itachi gave a shudder. Shisui yanked his hand back.

"There too?"

"Just tired." Itachi leaned his chin on his knees. The bruises on his wrists were turning blue now.

"You don't have to do this." Shisui reached down and took Itachi's chin, turning it to the light. "Ashbits, your eye's bloodshot all round, Itachi. Were you training or getting beaten?" There was hard anger under the soft concern of Shisui's face.

"I do, and it's all right." Itachi pushed Shisui's hand away. Itachi reluctantly uncurled and reached for a towel. Shisui handed it to him and watched as Itachi pulled himself from the cooling water. Itachi snapped the towel around his body as soon as he could, tucking it high against his chest.

"Are you going home?"

Itachi shook his head. He held out a mottled arm for Shisui to see. "Not like this." Shisui reached out and touched one of the larger bruises with sigh.

"You should have let me do this."

"He wouldn't teach you." Because Shisui, Madara knew, could not be changed or influenced. He was no fun. Itachi...Itachi could fracture and bend. His flesh was young and pliable, and so deliciously conflicted and cracked. Shisui was already solid and set. Of course, Itachi would never let himself be changed or broken by Madara. It just didn't hurt that the man thought he could.

Shisui frowned as pushing back Itachi's bangs. He tapped Itachi's bruised cheekbone. "I have to go out with 'the boys' tonight. You know. Drinking, carousing, picking up women." Shisui smiled. It was part of their grand charade. Shisui was the Uchiha's golden boy, and he played the part excellently. Itachi was tempted to say Shisui enjoyed it, the going out parts. There was always a giddiness around him when he came back smelling of drink and smoke and women.

Itachi scowled and felt his face heat. "Don't bring anyone back here."

"You're such a kid, you know that? No other ANBU blushes when sex is mentioned." Shisui teased, and Itachi felt his cheeks grow hotter. Shisui chuckled. "Gods, you know I love you kid."

"Not a kid." Itachi muttered.

"You're such a kid. I need the reminder sometimes that you're still my baby cousin anyway." Shisui smiled like he didn't often. It was open and relaxed-so warm but not burning. Itachi smiled a little back. "But you're growing. Puberty and everything-minus the chest hair." Itachi glared. Murderously. He took back his smile. "Maybe I should bring you back a woman."

Itachi felt his face get even hotter. He kicked at Shisui's ankle. Shisui jumped onto the bathroom counter as Itachi seethed. "If you do, I will castrate you."

"A guy?"

"_**SHISUI**_."

"I will support you wherever your interests take you-barring bestiality. You should feel open to share the budding feelings of sexuality with me." Shisui was serious. Devil and demons, Itachi wanted to melt into the floor.

Itachi put his head in his hands. He wondered if his face or his hair would catch on fire first. He loved his cousin, but Shisui also loved to tease Itachi mercilessly. He was the only one who could get away with it. "Shisui. Shut up and go away. _Please_ go _away_."

"So...no budding feelings?" Itachi heard Shisui shift, probably sitting down on the counter. Itachi remained stoic behind his hands, afraid he might squeak if he tried to speak.

"Maybe for me?" That got Itachi's eyes up. Embarrassment fled in the face of mortification. "It's not uncommon for children to develop their first romantic fantasies around their parents, so given I was both your parents and best friend, you having adolescent sexual fantasies about me-" Itachi gave up on dignity and started trying to strangle Shisui so that he would shut up. Shisui laughed now. He also fended of Itachi's blows with ease.

"Towel's slipping!" Shisui pointed out. Itachi used the opening to smack Shisui in the solar plexus. He then grabbed the towel that had retreated down his body past his hips. Itachi tugged the towel up and left the bathroom, grumbling under his breath.

"Itachi." Shisui's voice caught him at the door. Itachi turned his head, and Shisui wasn't smiling anymore. He was looking at Itachi, and he almost looked lost. "Why do you have bruises on your hips?"

Itachi's hand tightened in the towel around his hips. He glanced down. The bruises were ugly purple, red, blue with scratches lining and interlacing them. "He threw me down. The ground's hard." Itachi shrugged and walked out, towel wrapped around him like shield. "Have a good night, Shisui. Don't drink too much."

* * *

><p>"What happened?" Itachi voice rose and broke as he dropped the bag he carried. His hand fluttered to Shisui's face, his own a mask of horror. "Shisui-Shisui your <em>eye<em>."

"Hush." Shisui's voice cracked with pain, but when his bloody fingertips pressed over Itachi's lips, Itachi shut up. He stilled and thrummed with anxiety under Shisui's fingers. His round eyes were riveted on Shisui's empty eye socket, and why did Itachi have to look like a kid at times like this? Why? Shisui needed him to be adult.

"Morphine," Shisui croaked. Itachi nodded, probably shocked back into his childhood silence as he scrambled for the pack and grabbed the drug. Shisui slumped down against the river bank and pulled up a sleeve. He closed his good eye and concentrated on breathing. Even that seemed to hurt, but his skull was seamed with pain.

The tiny prick of the morphine needle in Shisui's arm hardly mattered. Itachi worked with efficiency, administering the drug and then holding pressure over the prick until it had stopped bleeding.

"Who?"

"Danzou." Shisui felt Itachi's outraged twitch. "Oh, not himself, the fat fish wouldn't dare. No, he sent someone after me. Several someone's." Shisui's voice caught on his fractured skull and he whimpered. His next three breaths were little gasps where he wanted to be sick. Itachi froze, body humming again in a dangerous way.

"I'll-"

"You." Shisui grabbed Itachi's arm. "I need you to get me home-after the morphine kicks in, okay? Stay with me and don't do anything stupid."

"We had a deal," Itachi hissed. He sat. He gripped Shisui's hand tightly. He still had small hands, though his voice was breaking now. He almost sounded adult if Shisui kept his eyes closed. Or like a teenager. An emotional teenager. That was even worse. Gods, what was Shisui doing dragging him into all of this? What kind of an idiot was he?

An idiot with no other option. Fuck them all. All their rules and regulations and idiocy-just fuck it.

"Yeah, guess he decided letting me run around with the ability to control him wasn't such a good idea, was it?" Shisui's hand tightened on Itachi's as another pained spike drove into his skull. His voice rose high and tight with pain. "He was scared, so he took it. It's not surprising."

"He took your _eye_."

"I have another."

"_Idiot._." Itachi pressed Shisui's knuckles to his mouth. "That's not the point."

"Then tell me the point, Itachi." The morphine was taking too long. Shisui wanted to claw at his skull. He was fighting to stay calm to keep Itachi from freaking out, but it was hard. Damn hard. "Tell me what your genius mind has decided that I am to inept to divine."

"We had a deal." Itachi hissed into Shisui's knuckles. "He agreed, and we agreed-we agreed to _kill our clan_for him, and then he..."

Shisui flexed his fingers and pressed them over Itachi's mouth. Itachi's lips were trembling, from which emotion Shisui couldn't tell. "We agreed to kill them for Konoha. Danzou's just one man of many, and we knew we couldn't trust him. This isn't that unexpected."

"Then why didn't you avoid it," Itachi snapped. His teeth threatened to actually bite, and Shisui pulled his hand back. He sat up a little more and opened his good eye. The world looked shallow and flat.

"I didn't see it coming. In hindsight, it seems obvious." Shisui smiled a little, and Itachi looked like he wanted to punch Shisui in the face. If Shisui wasn't injured, he probably would have. "Help me get cleaned up."

Itachi snatched a rag from his pack and went to the river. Shisui thought of mentioning how unsanitary the river water was, but he didn't. He lay still until Itachi came back. As he reached for the rag Itachi held it out of reach. Shisui sighed and dropped his hand. Itachi began carefully mopping off the blood. When he reached for Shisui's face, Shisui smelled the green taint of the river. The moisture dabbed at his face, but even the utmost care had Shisui gritting his teeth.

As Itachi carefully got the blood out of his eyebrow, Shisui whimpered. He hated the noise. Right now, when he needed to be strong for Itachi, he was falling apart. Itachi pulled his hands back. The breath he let out was unsteady. Shisui could feel the anger radiating off of Itachi like a furnace. That hot Uchiha blood. Hot Uchiha chakra. Fire was terrible destruction unless you kept it contained, but it was strongest when it ran free.

"Don't Itachi. Don't." Shisui grabbed for Itachi but didn't find him. He opened his good eye-both eyes from habit and his right lanced with pain. He grabbed for Itachi's arm and fumbled before he caught it. "Don't you dare go down that path, idiot. It's not our place to take revenge, I'm the idiot who let someone get a hold of my eye. Don't think about getting even." Shisui shook Itachi arm. Shook it hard enough that Itachi's head snapped back and forth. His eyes snapped to Shisui's face, blood red in his bloodless face.

"You took your _eye_. Shisui, he took your eye." Itachi's voice cracked. If you didn't have anger, what did you have? Childish hurt and pain at a friend's injury? Horror at the defacement of something you loved?

"I know." Shisui let his hand curl around the back of Itachi's neck. "Help me up, Itachi." Shisui leaned his forehead against Itachi's. He smell salt of sweat and blood. Maybe something else.

"Help me get home."


	2. Reborn in Blood and Fire

Sunset, I close my eyes  
>I pretend everything's alright<br>Drowning in anger from all these lies  
>I can't pretend everything's alright<br>Please don't let me fall forever  
>Can you tell me it's over?<p>

There's a hate inside of me like some kind of master-Shadows by Red

* * *

><p>No one could know, not until they'd dissected this new event and decided what it all meant for their plans. Itachi choked on a bitter laugh. <em>Plans<em>. Someone had stolen his cousin's eye. Shisui's _eye_. They'd plucked it out and fractured his skull. They'd hurt him. Betrayed him.

Itachi hated them so violently it almost made him sick. The flush of heat and then the sick chill washed over him again as he got something for Shisui to eat. Every time he touched a sharp object he thought of stabbing it into someone. Of twisting it in deep and making them scream. He hated these people who had hurt his cousin. He hated himself for letting it happen. He wanted to cry, but he was too old for the useless act. He should do something useful.

Like feeding the people who had hurt his cousin their own eyeballs.

Itachi drove Shisui's knife into the counter top. Madara was right. Itachi was like everyone else in the clan, not Shisui. Shisui was a fluke. A marvelous fluke that deserved to be worshipped. Itachi was just another hateful clanner with revenge in his bones and death in his heart. Before now, he'd thought himself different. He hadn't liked killing, but now...now that someone had crossed him, he found himself ready for murder—torture.

Itachi started chewing on his lip as he started for the bedroom. He tried to calm himself down, but it wasn't working. His vision swam with the force of his emotions. He'd never felt anything this strongly. He'd never felt so driven and righteous and sick.

Shisui looked up as Itachi came in. He cradled an icepack against the right side of his face. The swelling wasn't so bad. The oozing and bleeding had mostly stopped, and a quick rag wash has gotten the stench of the injury off of him. His color had improved, but he had the lax look of the drugged and pained. It frightened Itachi.

"Soup." Itachi sank down and set the tray at Shisui's knees.

"Thanks." Shisui shifted. He set the ice pack aside and pulled the tray closer. Itachi watched his hands, which moved without a tremor now. The memory of Shisui, shaking and smelling of blood and vomit still rattled in Itachi's head. Humans...humans were so frail.

So temporary.

"Hey." Itachi looked up to Shisui's lips and no farther. "This doesn't change anything. We still have to carry things out. Konoha won't be lost for want of an eyeball." Shisui's lips quirked, and Itachi didn't have the heart to look up and see if he'd winked. Could you wink with an eye patch?

"Doesn't it?" Itachi let his disgust show on his face.

"Not the big picture. It just changes the details." Shisui wagged a finger at Itachi. This cheer...Itachi knew Shisui faked it for him. It was another reprimand that he should be in control. He wasn't good enough. Not yet. He wasn't Shisui's equal. He really was a pawn.

Why couldn't he be good enough?

"We can't let anyone know, especially not the Uchiha." Shisui was repeating himself, but Itachi just sat and listened. "They'll just want revenge for what Danzou did, and maybe Danzou's head on a stick. That won't help anyone. It won't do us any good to kill them after that and try to hush-up they were planning revolt-everyone will know Konoha ordered the kill." Shisui's hands moved absently as he spoke, painting the ideas in air. Itachi watched, remembering shadow puppets in bomb shelters.

"I won't tell anyone." Itachi didn't bother to mention this put them on a short timeline. They couldn't hide this for long. A day, maybe a week if they were lucky? It wasn't likely. Sooner or later someone would come to see Shisui, and then they would know. Itachi felt a soft brush of paranoia. Could they hide it at all? Would someone find out?

Madara. If someone was going to find out, it would be him.

"I have to go see him tonight." Itachi finally looked at Shisui's face. The eye patch made it uneven. Itachi wanted to tip his head to the side to make it come into better focus. He kept his head on straight and looked away instead.

Shisui's face shuttered. "Tonight."

Itachi nodded. "Tonight."

"Maybe you should stay..."

"Eat your soup, Shisui. It won't take long," Itachi promised. He stood up slowly. "You said we shouldn't let anyone know. I don't want to give Madara a reason to look into anything, and I promised my father I'd be home for supper."

"Is it that bad?" Shisui asked softly. Itachi paused in the act of grabbing his stashed weapons. Some might have been Shisui's. Material objects passed between them fluidly. The only thing they couldn't practically share were clothes, but that didn't stop Itachi from stealing Shisui's from time to time, guiltily stealing snatches of his cousin's scent while Shisui was away on long missions. That hadn't happened for a while. They'd been together for more than a year now.

"You said the plan was still the same. You said nothing had changed." Itachi pulled on an oversized flak vest and then discarded it. He took off his headband and tossed it onto Shisui's dresser. It hit a wooden box and skittered up against the mirror. Itachi saw himself as a vague, dark reflection in the murky glass. "It must not be so bad."

"My face-Itachi, why won't you look at my face?" Shisui asked. Again, this was the soft, lost tone that unnerved Itachi completely. He didn't know what to say. He couldn't make himself look again. His own head hurt at the thought. He could feel someone reaching into his skull and plucking his eye out. Itachi shivered.

"I'll be back in an hour." Itachi moved for the door.

"Itachi, stop-why won't you-just stop and look at me." Shisui's voice had risen not in volume, but in pitch. Itachi heard Shisui shifting to rise to his feet.

"Itachi, _stop._" This time, Itachi didn't stop. Shisui's words followed him out. He tugged on his shoes and hurried down the steps without thinking about it. It didn't matter. It was the first time he'd ever walked away when Shisui was calling it. It was the first time he couldn't take the sight of his cousin's face.

* * *

><p>"Shisui's not feeling well. I'm going to stay with him for the night." Itachi stood as stiffly as if he were reporting to his superiors. His parents were still sitting at the table, lingering over smoky conversation of what-ifs and future desecration. Itachi swallowed the sudden rise of bile in his throat. He hadn't seen them in a while, and all he could think was he was going to kill them. He was going to kill the resentful, proud, plotting people to save a village.<p>

It didn't make him feel like a hero.

"What happened?" Mikoto asked. They had never been close. When she'd had Itachi, her child for her clan, she'd been too busy fighting to do more than make sure Itachi was handed off to someone else. He'd ended up with Shisui, who had spent years trying to keep Itachi alive and growing. Should he feel grateful for her abandonment? Or that she hadn't drunk poison to shake him loose when she'd learned she'd conceived him?

"A mild poison. He was given the antitoxin, but will be sick for the night and maybe tomorrow." Itachi didn't twist his hands behind his back. He wondered if lying had ever been hard for him. He didn't remember it being anything but easy. He was a liar. His parents would be proud.

"You are certain?" Fugaku's voice was gruff. Of course he was concerned about Shisui. Itachi nodded, wondering if his father was more concerned for Shisui than he could ever be for Itachi. Itachi didn't feel any resentment for this. He didn't desire his father's affection. They were not close, just as his mother wasn't close to him. Itachi wasn't sure he had met his father until he was four or older, and he only knew the man as his father in a biological sense—a clan sense.

"I am. My staying with Shisui is just a precaution." Itachi shifted the bundle across his shoulders. "I have a mission tomorrow, so I won't be home until late."

"There's a meeting tomorrow night. Don't forget." Fugaku's stern gaze demanded no deviance. Compared to Madara's calm, insidious suggestions, his father held no power. Itachi realized what Madara had given him in the months he'd been training him then. It wasn't just forgotten techniques, but a state of mind that allowed Itachi to resist.

"I'll be there, Chichi-ue." Itachi bowed at his waist.

"NII-SAN!"

Itachi lifted his head and had time to catch Sasuke as the boy rocketed into him. The boy latched onto Itachi's waist and turned a huge smile on Itachi. The doubts Madara had instilled in Itachi faded away. Sasuke was so young and innocent-how could he be anything like the rest of Itachi's family? He'd never let hate rule him.

"Nii-san, Nii-san, can you play?" Sasuke asked, bouncing up and down on his toes. Someone had had too much dessert, it seemed.

"Sorry Sasuke, Shisui needs me." Itachi slipped out of his brother's hold and stepped back. He tapped Sasuke on the forehead. "Next time, okay?"

Sasuke heaved a huge sigh. "You _always_say that." His pout was uncalculated. If times were any less drastic, Itachi would have stayed. He loved his brother. The fresh-faced innocence was a balm against the harsh world, and no one else seemed to have time for the little boy. Itachi hid his smile and gently pushed Sasuke away.

"Next time."

Except, Itachi wasn't sure they would have a next time.

"Okay, good night, Nii-san." Sasuke sighed.

"Good night Sasuke." Itachi bowed to his parents again. He swept one last look over Sasuke before he turned away. It made him less anxious about the massacre to know Sasuke would be spared. Sasuke was so young and innocent he didn't deserve death for what the elders of his clan were planning. He deserved a chance to live free of them

….but would he be free of them? Itachi remembered Madara's questions and shook them away. Sasuke was nothing like their parents. He was himself, and he would prove that he was different. Itachi now felt Shisui's calm rationale step in. Sasuke _would_prove himself-or had yet to. It was always dangerous working with an untried agent-person, boy. Sasuke had never been subjected to war or seen the results of violence on those who loved first hand. Who was to say how he would act?

Itachi, because if he couldn't trust his brother to carry out his role, he couldn't justify keeping him alive. The thought almost choked Itachi. The one thing he and Shisui couldn't agree on was Sasuke and how he should be handled. They'd bounced back and forth over whether Sasuke should be allowed to see the massacre or not. Shisui thought so, Itachi thought not. Shisui said that everything should be real. Sasuke shouldn't be sheltered from any of the horror. He had to believe beyond a doubt that his previously loving brother would turn into a monster.

_Can you be the demon, Itachi? Can you be the hated monster that makes your brother scream?_

He could if it meant Sasuke would survive this madness. Itachi shook his head and found he was already halfway to the outside of the compound. He never had his guard up when he was in the compound. Why did he feel safe in this den of conspirators? He knew some doubted him. They'd asked Shisui to watch him months ago. Shisui had almost laughed himself sick about that. It wasn't really funny, but they didn't have much to laugh at these days. Itachi imagined what they would do to him if they knew what he was planning. They'd lock him up. Question him.

They'd take his eyes.

Itachi let his bangs fall into his face. He stepped around one of his distant cousins, giving her a nod before he froze and really looked at her. Her hair was brown instead of black, but her eyes were the placid dark grey of an Uchiha. She wasn't fighting fit. Her arms were softly rounded, the swell of her breasts against her simple yukata suggested that it was actually a little too small. One hand rested on the grand swell of her stomach.

"Konbanwa, Itachi-kun." 'Kun'. He was always still 'kun.' She was smiling at him, and Itachi slowly plucked her name from the family tree.

"Mamimi-san." Itachi inclined his head and bowed slightly. "It's been a while."

"You almost didn't recognize me, didn't you?" Mamimi's eyes twinkled bright. She rubbed her stomach. "Mou, I've gained so much weight these last two months, but only one more to go."

One more month. What would she do if she knew her child wouldn't be born? Would she cry? Beg? Would she try to kill him to save her child? Itachi couldn't take his eyes off the rounded bulge.

"He's kicking. Do you want to feel him?" Mamimi asked. Itachi didn't, but he found her positioning his hand on her stomach, pressing against the taught flesh beneath the layers of fabric. "Do you feel him?" Mamimi asked in a hushed, singing voice.

Itachi did. The soft motion made him jump, but Mamimi held his hand to her stomach. Her face was glowing with pride and excitement. Her eyes were alive and bright. Her child. Her baby. Itachi swallowed bile and his heart stopped as she looked him in the face.

"I want my baby to grow up free, Itachi-kun. I want him to be able to hold up his head high, because he's an Uchiha, not have people spit on him because of it." The rise and fall of her voice was almost hypnotic, as if she already held the baby in her arms and was trying to soothe it.

_Do you want him to grow up in the middle of another war?_Itachi wanted to shout it, but he just nodded. The child kicked hard against his hand, as if it was trying to escape the confines of his mother's womb. He was just like the Uchiha, kicking and smothering in the confines of the compound. Maybe this was all a natural process. Maybe these were just the birthing pains of something new and glorious.

Itachi looked the mother to be in the eyes and smiled as if he understood everything she said. Her answering smile was parting enough, and Itachi walked down the street again. He now noticed people calling greetings to him. People watched him walk by with a certain wariness and pride. He was their genius-or was he really theirs? Would he see through their ambitions? Would he turn tail and run? Would be allow them to be born again in flame and blood and death?

Itachi shivered under the weight of the eyes on him and ducked into an alley. He tried to clear his mind. Madara would eat him alive if he arrived with his head in such a mess

* * *

><p>"Must genjutsu go through the eyes?" Madara asked. He had Itachi's wrists slammed into the rough bark of a great tree. Itachi was staring up at the branches. He would not make eye contact. He'd been stupid to let himself get trapped like this. It wasn't a day to work on taijutsu. This was a day for genjutsu and lectures on the fine art of coercion.<p>

"Yes." Itachi didn't know anymore. He should have stayed with Shisui. His cousin had needed him.

"You can't transmit it through the skin?" Madara asked. His fingers pressed hot against Itachi's wrists. "Through the ears?" Madara's voice was a dry song, like the playing of a reed flute. Itachi felt his body shudder, going limp under the caress of something he didn't understand. He sagged against the supporting hands.

"You are so easy when your guard is down, my pet. Tell me, what has happened to the center of your universe to set it so askew? Why does your mind fill with the throws of adolescent _angst_. It's beneath you, this troubled feeling of humanity."

Itachi felt the heat of Madara press him down. His smell was thick in the air, wrapping around Itachi like a fog. He felt his eyes try to fall shut. Genjutsu? Maybe. Yes. No. Couldn't be.

Power?

Yes. Sheer force of power. Nothing was impossible when you had enough power.

Why wasn't he strong enough to make the impossible possible?

"What has happened to your keeper?"

Everything was a lesson with Madara, with its own rewards and punishment. Itachi felt another shiver pass through him at Madara's words. The heat of the man had soaked into Itachi. He felt fevered without the ache.

"What do you hide from me, my darling little cripple?"

Itachi was good enough to keep his thoughts away from Shisui. He focused instead on the jutsu Madara had put on him. He felt approval from the man, but the lesson wasn't over.

"Which is a better for persuasion? Pleasure?" Madara's calloused fingers ran up Itachi's palms, the heat increased. Itachi felt his heart start to race, his mouth parted softly of its own accord. Now he began to struggle against the unwanted intrusion. Now it started to alarm him, and he began to slip under this thick film of deception. It tried to pull Shisui into his mind. Itachi tried to use the thought of his cousin to center himself and fight off the illusion. Shisui's touch, Shisui's voice, Shisui's smile—all combined with the heavy heat roiling in Itachi's body. Itachi bit the inside of his cheek.

"Or pain?"

Madara shoved senbon through Itachi's palms into the tree, electricity running down them and through Itachi's nerves. The heat turned into a burn that ravaged Itachi quickly, tore him apart, boiled his blood. Itachi felt his head hit the back of the tree, breaking the skin. He tasted blood in his mouth where he'd bitten through his tongue. Pressure points were suddenly overloaded with electricity as he hung from the thin metal needles. The pain lasted only moments, but it was enough to have tears running down his face. At least he hadn't screamed.

"Better." Madara removed the senbon, and Itachi sank to the ground. He cradled his hands next to his chest and his body shook all over from the remains of the jutsu. Pain. It could mean so many different things. Madara made it mean agony of so many different kinds.

"See how the both work? Don't deny yourself a useful tool because of morals." Madara crouched by Itachi, his deadly hands loose on his knees. There had to be a smile behind his mask. "Mix pleasure and pain, and you can make anyone your slave. Do you see?"

"I see."

"Says the blind little rat." Madara chuckled. "Now, which is better?"

Itachi closed his eyes. "Pleasure is fleeting and engenders affection, which is unpredictable. Pain creates a stronger memory in the victims mind, and engenders fear. With each incident they begin to hate and fear you more, and you also become more powerful in their eyes."

"Or?" Madara was inches from touching him, and Itachi didn't have the will to pull back. Madara would hurt him no matter what he did. Itachi wasn't strong enough to protect himself from Madara yet. Not yet, but one day. One day he would be. He'd have enough power.

"Or, if you have two agents, allow one to administer pain and the other pleasure. The victim will feel closer to one agent and more likely to tell secrets, but you still have someone that they fear to keep them in line." There were risks with every approach, though. Having the supposed support of one agent could make your victim rebellious. It could make them better able to resist the pain.

"Is hate a stronger coercive than love, my little cripple?"

Itachi opened his gritty eyes to look at the man. He looked at Madara's throat, pale and surprisingly young. "Yes."

"No, no, think. You will do nothing I ask without good reason, but you would do anything for your cousin." Madara used that coaxing tone. Try as he might, Itachi couldn't tell if the man was using a genjutsu or not. Maybe the man was just talking sense in his own twisted way.

"Shisui doesn't manipulate me into anything." It was more a protest than the fact Itachi wanted it to be.

"Ah, does he not? Are there not things he does that you don't agree with? Don't you give over to his opinions because you trust him to do what is best?" Madara again forestalled Itachi's protest with a flick of his long hand. "Is this not manipulation at its most basic levels? I am not saying your cousin doesn't care for you, oh, never that, but he does use you. He is the greatest threat to you, my cripple."

"I'm not killing him." Itachi made himself stand. "Not for power, not for freedom, not for anything."

"Or anyone?" Madara asked. Itachi paused before he nodded. He flexed his aching hands and decided nothing was broken or torn. Madara meant to hurt, not cripple.

Madara smiled. "See? Love keeps the one man who could kill your cousin from killing him. It is a more powerful and devastating hold than any other." Itachi looked at Madara and wondered if he should even try to explain love and how he felt for his cousin. The words would just be twisted back on him. They'd choke him if he kept it up long enough. He didn't speak. Silence had always been a safe place for him to hide from those he couldn't argue down.

"Enough. We'll continue tomorrow. I'll drag the secrets of your cousin from your rebellious tongue then.. We'll practice the application of pleasure, since you don't understand its full powers. The time draws near, doesn't it?" Madara's fingers were interlaced. Itachi wasn't frightened. Madara could never induce him, by pain or 'pleasure' to betray his cousin's confidence.

Such was the power of love. Itachi smiled bitterly.

"I don't know." Itachi swallowed the blood and bile in his mouth. "I can't come tomorrow. I have a mission."

Madara waved a hand. "Make time for me, my little cripple. I have much more to teach you before the day comes." It was a promise and a threat, all wrapped up in his silky voice.

* * *

><p>As Itachi ascended the steps to Shisui's apartment, he felt only relief. No matter what awaited him inside, it was better than what he face outside. In Shisui's apartment, he was safe. He could be himself and not worry about hiding anything. Itachi pushed his way inside, breathing out a sickness and guilt that had gathered around him.<p>

Now, to deal with Shisui. Itachi had been steeling himself for this ever since he'd left Madara. His bandaged hands somehow gave him courage. He felt almost like a child running to its mother after being bullied. Maybe he just wanted to feel safe, but running to Shisui for comfort while his cousin was injured had to be selfish. It didn't stop Itachi from doing it.

"Shisui." Itachi toed off his shoes and let his pack slide into his hand. "Shisui?"

"Here." Shisui's voice came from the bathroom. Itachi glanced and made sure Shisui's empty dishes were in the sink before he walked over to the bathroom. He dropped his bag by the couch as he passed it. Shisui leaned heavily on the counter. One side of his face was slightly swollen, but it was resolving quickly. Shisui stared at the gaping eye socket. Itachi looked at his slightly bloody fingers.

"You feeling okay? You look pale." Shisui didn't turn from the mirror. Itachi shook his head.

"Not really, but I'm all right." Itachi moved and picked up the gauze pad and tape. "Cover it up before it gets infected, and stop _poking at it_."

"It really does look that bad, doesn't it?" Shisui asked, eyes still riveted on the mirror. "Hideous."

"You always look hideous." Itachi reached for Shisui's face and grabbed his chin. He placed the gauze over the hole in Shisui's face, gingerly taping it down. "You should be sleeping."

"I tried, but I kept thinking I was going to roll over on my eye…" Shisui shrugged. He reached for the gauze pad, absently. Itachi grabbed Shisui's hand and flicked on the faucet. He shoved Shisui's hand under the water and started scrubbing at the blood. It flaked off easily, but some was stuck under his fingernails. It wasn't much, as Shisui chewed his fingernails—a bad habit. Itachi turned off the water and started drying off Shisui's hand. He couldn't blame Shisui for how he was acting now. It was the drugs. The pain. The trauma from losing his eye.

Shisui gently hooked his fingers in Itachi's and turned Itachi's palm up. The bandages around Itachi's hands were still a little bloody. "More training?"

"You've broken my nose training me, don't fuss." Itachi folded his hand over Shisui's and pulled him towards the bedroom. "Come on, I have an idea." Shisui, with the utmost care, let his hand curl around Itachi's, fidgeting with the bandages wrapped around Itachi's hand. Itachi pulled his hand away only as they entered and walked across the room. He grabbed a large pillow—the kind from Ame Shisui liked to sprawl on or sleep with when Itachi wasn't around-from against the wall.

"Here." Itachi settled himself on Shisui's futon in the lotus position and set the pillow in his lap. Shisui gave his cousin a raised eyebrow look.

"Rethinking your leanings?" Shisui asked, but he crawled onto the futon.

"I can keep your head from turning while you sleep, idiot," Itachi settled his back against the wall. Shisui didn't protest. He didn't snipe. He didn't tease. He just slowly, like an old man, lowered himself onto his back and placed his head on the pillow. His face...

Itachi set his hand on either side of Shisui's neck, forearms stabilizing his cousin's battered head. Shisui sighed, the air leaking out of him, deflating his chest as he closed his eye. Itachi could see the pain etched into the set of Shisui's mouth, and the line between his eyebrows.

"I'll have it figured out by morning, Itachi. You just focus on your mission."

"Just sleep. We'll worry about it later." Later. Now, it would eat at them, drag them down into nightmares and shifting dreams. Itachi pulled his hands up to carefully smoothed Shisui's hair back from his face.

"Later." Shisui's little scoff was skepticism embodied. Itachi shook his head. Shisui's bushy hair curled around his fingers. The matted blood was gone from it, and it smelled like Shisui again. Clean comfort that made Itachi want to just let go and stop worrying. Shisui would make it all right—but it wasn't fair to think that way anymore. Itachi had to help. He would help. They'd make this right together.

"Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow never comes."

"When you wake up."

"And if I never wake up?"

Itachi let his silence last for a heartbeat too long—not that his heart was beating after those words. The sudden tightness in his throat made him think he couldn't speak for a moment. Then he shook it off. Shisui was teasing despite the serious cast of his features as he looked up through the dark at Itachi.

"Shisui." Itachi leaned his forehead against Shisui's. "Go. To. Sleep. Or I will strangle you and you will never wake up in the morning."

"I love it when you sweet talk me," Shisui smiled, breathing out slowly.

"Mm," Itachi rubbed his fingertips against Shisui's scalp.

"Do your hands hurt? Where he stabbed you?" Shisui asked.

"No. Nothing hurts me. You can't hurt the shadows." Itachi let the soft, musical tone of Madara's voice sink into his own. "Go to sleep, Shisui. _Sleep._" Shisui's eye opened. He gave Itachi a sardonic look and then closed his eye again.

It was a long time before the old trick of warm fingers rubbing his scalp had Shisui's body relaxing and his breath evening off into sleep. Itachi let his hands slide down to rest against Shisui's neck. He could feel the man's steady pulse. The drugs had slowed it, but it was strong. Itachi counted it in his head once. Twice. Thrice. Again and again until he'd assured himself Shisui's pulse would last the night. Then he allowed himself to fall asleep, waking every hour for another count.

* * *

><p>Itachi didn't know if he wished his mission of guarding the councilman had been more challenging or if he was glad it hadn't. He'd had plenty of time to consider Shisui, to wonder how he felt, what he had decided, what they could do about this new turn of events. Shisui had groggily promised in the morning that he'd have the last of the details worked out by the time Itachi came home. They couldn't deny that there would be changes. Itachi didn't think the changes would be that big, but he already knew one of them. Missing an eye, Shisui wouldn't be able to help him with the massacre. It would take too long for him to get used to the lost eye, and Itachi wouldn't risk Shisui's life in a night fight while he was handicapped that way. Everything need to be perfect, and Shisui wouldn't be.<p>

Itachi would have to enlist Madara, which would please the man. The only problem was Itachi had no real control over Madara. At the moment, while Itachi would be a challenge for the man, he didn't think he could beat him. Shisui probably could, and together there was no doubt they could overpower the man. There was the question of whether they could do it know.

The mission ended early. Itachi was thanked gravely for standing around and being imposing even though he was barely over five feet now. It wasn't even noon as Itachi climbed back into Shisui's apartment through the window. Itachi stepped down slowly, easing his presence in. He slipped off his ANBU armor as he walked in, looking for his cousin.

"Shisui?" Itachi pulled off his boots and set them by the door. He received no answer and hoped Shisui was sleeping again. He needed his sleep to recover, but if he was in the bathroom, poking at his eye again...

Itachi shook his head and went to peer into the bathroom. Shisui wasn't there. Itachi checked the bedroom next and found Shisui sitting, head carefully in his hands. There were notes spread all over the floor. Shisui had pinned some to the wall. Scrawl covered one white washed wall, things angrily crossed out, some obliterated entirely. Shisui had been doing some serious planning of the chaotic kind, but it looked like it had wound down into something more controlled by the end.

Something desperate and frantic too.

"This is it, Itachi, the best plan. The simplest, the most likely not to get completely screwed up ten seconds after we put it into motion." Shisui smiled, barebones and empty excitement. Itachi didn't know if he was worried or if he should feed off of Shisui's excitement. He knew the high that came from planning and finally seizing upon the ultimate solution.

"So what is it?" Itachi knelt down across from Shisui.

"See, we'll use my Mangekyou as a contingency, in case Sasuke-I mean, well, any of the kids—doesn't perform as suspecting with a command to protect Konoha. We can also get rid of the threat of my eyes, because you know no one's going to just let a missing-nin walk around with eyes like mine. You'll also have to get Madara to help you with the actual massacre, so it all goes off smoothly." Shisui's hands twitched and moved as he spoke.

"That's it?" Itachi pressed. The fragmented details didn't seem so different from what they'd planned, but Itachi could see Shisui was holding the pivotal piece of information back. "That doesn't seem so different."

"There's one thing very different," Shisui admitted. His hands stilled, and some of the manic energy seemed to drain out of him.

"What?" Itachi tried not to look as nervous as he felt.

"You have to kill me." Shisui smiled (as if it was no big deal), but he was utterly serious. Itachi gave Shisui a few moments to say it was a lie, that he was kidding, or explain how they would fake Shisui's death.

Then he punched Shisui.


	3. Baptized by Water

_I'm holding onto you, I'll never let go  
>I need you with me as I enter the shadows<em>-Shadows by RED

_And he took me to the river  
>Where he slowly let me drown<em>

_And is it worth the wait_  
><em>All this killing time?<em>  
><em>Are you strong enough to stand<em>  
><em>Protecting both your heart and mine<em>?-Heavy in Your Arms by Florence and the Machine

* * *

><p>It had been ages since Shisui and Itachi had actually had a fight. A screaming, hateful, hurt filled fight that involved words and not fists or feet.<p>

"That doesn't even make sense!" Itachi was standing behind the counter, his hands pressed against it like he might launch himself across it at Shisui. Shisui would actually welcome that. Maybe if they fought it out, they could come to a better understanding of eachother.

"It does, look-" Shisui gestured to his face. "What do you think is going to happen when people figure out I've lost an eye? They'll swarm us. They'll wonder who has the other eye, and they'll realize two things. One, that I can be defeated and that they _can_ take my eye. Two, that there's only one eye left and they have to hurry before someone else takes it. They'll also want to know who has the first, so then there's torture, and when it gets out what happened...our stories won't hold up. People will think we were genjutsu'd with _my_jutsu into killing the clan.

"Even if someone doesn't get me, what do you think some will think after we massacre our clan and I turn up with only one eye? Out of the thousands of ninja pondering the problem, at least _one_will decide my missing eye plus our clan's death means there was genjutsu involved. If Konoha is blamed, there goes everything. The other clans will get nervous and hostile and pull away, and we'll be back where we started."

"So we fake your death!" Itachi shot back. He was frightened, under the anger and betrayal he was terrified, and Shisui knew it. He hated himself for this. He hated that he couldn't find another way.

"Finding a suitable corpse, planting it, and doing all the genjutsu we'd need would take too long. Also, it's too risky. Danzou, at least, would suspect I was still alive. He'd assume I'd have a grudge, and the only power to counter his. He'd be constantly searching for me and trying to decide if I was really dead, or plotting my revenge on him and Konoha. He'd use Sasuke and the kids as a shield, and they wouldn't be allowed to grow as we wanted. He's too afraid of me and what I can do." Shisui slowly moved towards the counter. "Stop thinking with your heart and use your head. This is the easiest way to simplify things."

"I can't do this without you." Itachi's hands shook on the counter. "There's your logic, Shisui. I can't _do this_without you. I need you to keep me on the right path."

"You think you'll fall apart without me? Itachi, you're stronger than that." Shisui reached his hands on the counter. Itachi jerked his back.

"I'm not like you. I'm like them. I want revenge and murder just as badly as they do. I want Danzou to suffer for what he did to you." Itachi spat the name out like poison, and his red eyes turned sharply at the thought.

"But you didn't-"

"Because you were there to stop me! If you had died, nothing would have stopped me from killing everyone involved in your death." Itachi looked heart-breakingly like Fugaku in that moment, his teeth bared, anger and hatred lacing his words.

Shisui leaned across the counter and grabbed one of Itachi's fisted hands. "No, no you wouldn't have. You don't want revenge. You want justice. You want the world to be fair, but you know there won't be justice unless you hand it out yourself." Shisui squeezed Itachi's wrist. "That's just as dangerous for us as wanting revenge. We're not the ones who take revenge or decide on justice. We're the tools serving from the shadows."

"I can't do this without you. You promised you'd be with me." Itachi struggled to keep the anger in his voice strong.

"You're so quick to believe the worst about yourself." Shisui sighed. "Do you think I'd create a plan like this that hinged on a shaky variable? I know you. I raised you, I've fought you, I know you better than anyone else. You can do this. You won't get lost in the anger. I know you won't."

"I can't kill you." Itachi's face was set

"You need the Mangekyou."

Itachi jerked his hand away from Shisui's. "There are other ways to get it! Just look at yours."

"Madara said that was the way to get the strongest Mangekyou. He could be lying, but why else would that have been the preferred method of gaining the Mangekyou? Without me, you're going to need every advantage you have against Madara and Danzou and everyone else."

"Oh, so now you're going to give me a powerful technique, then turn me loose without my conscious after I've killed the person who matters most to me? That sounds like a great idea for keeping Konoha safe," Itachi folded his arms and looked away.

"Call it a safety measure. You can't use the Mangekyou at full strength for long, so at least I'd be putting a cap on your reign of terror." Shisui stepped around the island counter. He could see Itachi's resistance faltering and breaking down. He could see all the points and reasons.

"I can't kill you. I _can't_kill you, Shisui." Itachi held his arms and looked off into the distance.

"I could make you."

Itachi looked at Shisui sharply. His eyes were grey and red now. At the sight of Shisui's face, something broke down. Itachi dropped his gaze. "Are you that determined to die?"

"I'm that determined that Konoha should be safe. What's one more death, Itachi?"

Itachi's shoulders convulsed in a smothered laugh. "There's got to be another way."

Shisui touched Itachi's cheek and pushed his thick bangs back behind his ear. "Then help me find it." Shisui, feeling the warmth of his cousin's cheek under his hand, didn't want to die. He didn't want to leave Itachi alone, and the very thought of it tore him apart inside. Shisui leaned his forehead against Itachi's.

"Help me find it, love. Show me the way."

* * *

><p>Itachi and Shisui talked until they were hoarse. Finally, there was nothing more to say. If Shisui had noticed Itachi trying not to cry, he hadn't mentioned it. Itachi sat in Shisui's place on the bed, his head in his hands. It was late afternoon now, the sun was climbing down from the sky, and the day was ending. So much was ending.<p>

"Hey, get some sleep."

Itachi looked up, vision blurry, at Shisui. The patch was off, and the swelling of his eye was almost gone thanks to some chakra laced salve. They wanted to leave as little evidence of the wound as possible. Itachi scoffed. "Sleep."

Sleep, on the last afternoon his cousin would be alive?

"I know you didn't get much last night, idiot. Can you sneak into a morgue on no sleep?" Shisui closed the curtains and plunged the room into almost darkness. "Get a few hours, at least. I'll wake you when it's time."

"And what will you do?" Itachi could hear Shisui's steps ruffling the papers still on the floor. He'd been over those papers until he thought his eyes might start to bleed, and they hadn't bothered to clean them up. Maybe Itachi would burn them. They hadn't been much help in the end.

"Think." Shisui's foot caught Itachi in the chest and shoved him back onto the bed. "Just in case we missed anything." Itachi let himself flop back onto the bed. He stared at the pale ceiling, one he knew like his own calloused hand. He was never going to sleep under it again. The thought hadn't seemed so terrible until this afternoon. Now it felt like something that could strangle the life out of him.

"Nothing's going to change, is it? If there was another answer, we would have found it by now." Itachi closed his eyes. He didn't really need an answer. Shisui didn't give it. He sat down instead, placing his hand on Itachi's shoulder. His hand was warm. It didn't shake. It was strong.

"Get some sleep, Itachi. I'll be here when you wake up."

Itachi's eyes snapped open, and he stared in the darkness at his cousin. He could vaguely see Shisui's face-not that he really needed to see his cousin. His mind knew the curve of Shisui's face, the tilt of his eyes, and the mass of his wild hair. He'd seen it with the Sharingan so many times there was no way he could forget it. Still, the fear that he might forget Shisui's face struck Itachi. Would Shisui become just another water stained photograph in his mind, one of the faceless dead of Itachi's life?

Shisui caught Itachi's groping hand before Itachi even realized what he was reaching for. "Sleep." The soft whisper was husky and warm. Itachi felt his eye lids flutter shut only to open again. How could he sleep? He gripped Shisui's hand, aware of how much larger Shisui's hands were. Shisui was five years older, already nineteen. An adult in every way. He was stronger, smarter, more capable.

"You should kill me and take one of my eyes," Itachi suggested slowly.

"It wouldn't have the Mangekyou. People would still know." There was a musical tilt to Shisui's voice now.

"They'll come after me for my eyes too." Itachi blinked heavily, cursing their eyes. Why were they born with devil's eyes?

"No, no they won't. No one will know what they can do, and it's not your eyes that make you great. No one part of you is anything but exceptional, but, together, you combine everything to be extraordinary. Me, I just have my eyes and my flicker step. You've got everything, and by the time someone decides they want your eyes, they'll be too afraid of you to even try.

"That's what I'll do for you. I'll make you untouchable."

Itachi felt the heavy pulse of his heart in his chest. Shisui's words whispered to him like blood in his ears. Every syllable, every personal twitch and quirk of voice, Itachi stored away. He packed them into his black soul to keep it from rotting away, and he hoped that would be enough.

"That's what I'm going to miss most."

Shisui pressed his wet lips to Itachi's knuckles. "Not seeing you grow up. You would have been great-will be..." Shisui chuckled. "Tenses. . .I wish I could see that. You in five years, finally reaching your peak. I wanted to see what you'd become."

"You can't miss people when you're dead." Itachi hardly realized that he was speaking.

"Can't you?" Shisui's voice was a softer whisper, as if he realized Itachi was falling fast asleep and didn't want to rouse him. "What happens to ninja when they die? Do they go to hell? Who would want the protection of a killer spirit? Will I get another life to redeem myself in?"

"You deserve another life." Itachi sighed. "A safe one filled with...with love and life...and goldfish."

Shisui's laugh sounded hysterical; Itachi was too far gone to realize it. "Go to sleep, baby cousin, please just go to sleep." Shisui's voice almost cracked on the last words, and Itachi realized then his cousin's voice was laced with a genjutsu. There was no fighting this sleep.

* * *

><p>Shisui left Itachi sleeping to make sure he had things ready. He felt like he didn't have enough time, but he found himself wandering around his apartment, looking at things he hadn't noticed in ages. Little knick-knacks from missions. Smooth river stones he and Itachi had found-the old blunted kunai he'd first given Itachi in the trenches. So little time, but the seconds dragged as the dark crept into the apartment. Itachi slept, trouble and twitching from time to time in his sleep. Shisui leaned against the doorframe and watched him, going in from time to time to sit by Itachi and just watch him sleep. Watch him breath.<p>

Shisui thought of killing himself before Itachi woke up. He thought of taking that burden from the child's frail shoulders, but he didn't dare. For now, they still had things they needed to do. Maybe he was afraid to kill himself. Maybe he was clinging to every second of life he had. Maybe he was hoping the guilt of killing his cousin would be another chain holding Itachi to the path Shisui had started him on.

Nothing was simple. Every notion was filled with deceit and multiple meanings and reasons.

Itachi slipped out of the genjutsu after dark. He started twisting and turning, his breathing erratic. He actually started mumbling. Itachi had always been a quiet sleeper as a child. Crammed in some bomb shelter or wherever else, Shisui could always rely on Itachi to be silent and still as he fell asleep. Now, ten and more years from those days, Itachi still slept heavy and silent whenever Shisui as around.

Shisui knelt down beside Itachi and let the boy's roaming fingers catch his own. Itachi opened his eyes, foggy with sleep. Shisui could barely see them.

"_Nii-san_." The childish mumble brought to mind easier times. Shisui pushed Itachi's bangs back from his face. His thick hair was tangled. Shisui had always loved Itachi's hair, and loved to tease him about it. It was the only thing Itachi was vain about. Shisui wondered if his cousin's childhood prettiness would fade, or if it would intensify over the years. Would he be the man who walked down the street and everyone stared? Would his cool reserve melt into charm? Would he even need genjutsu to bend people to his will?

"I'm here." Shisui smoothed a hand over Itachi's forehead. He wanted to see it. He wanted to live his life with his cousin, entwined and inseparable as they always had been. He didn't want anything to change. Maybe there had been some excitement in their plan, running off from unjust persecution to live as missing-nin. Maybe it had been a romantic fantasy too childish to live in the harsh reality of their lives.

"Had a dream." Itachi rubbed at his sleep clotted eyes. His fingers curled against his palm.

"A dream?" Shisui traced the curve of Itachi's face-his sharp, high cheekbone, the socket of his eye. "What dream?"

"The sky was on fire. The village was burning." Itachi's head shifted and he looked up at Shisui. "I fell in the river." Shisui's fingers traced Itachi's jaw, still childish in shape, but he could feel the firmness growing in it. _You will be amazing, Itachi. The way you come together...You will be the most amazing thing the world has ever seen._

There was dangerous pride in raising someone like Itachi. "You fell in the river." Shisui touched Itachi's lips, worried and cracked. Itachi still chewed on them when he was alone or behind his ANBU mask. He chewed on the inside of his cheeks when he wasn't hiding behind something. His mouth was probably covered in scars. Such a bad habit. A ninja shouldn't have a nervous tic, but it was endearingly human for a child.

"You pulled me out. The water was red. I couldn't breathe...you..."Itachi blinked heavily. His eyes came into focus, his cousin's fingers stroking his face.

"Did you think of another way?" Itachi asked. His voice sounded older, tired, broken.

Shisui shook his head. "No."

Itachi nodded. He stretched his arms above his head and then relaxed. One of his arms fell over his eyes.

"You died." Itachi took a sharp breath. "And I pushed you into the river and watched you sink." Itachi's lips twisted into an ugly shape. His jaw clenched.

Shisui leaned down. "I'm right here." The crack of Shisui's head as Itachi grabbed Shisui's hair and pulled him down wasn't just pain, but a conformation of life as his cousin's nails dug deep into his skin.

* * *

><p>Three hours. Itachi leaned against Shisui's side in silence as they went over the hospital blue prints. Three hours. Three hours. What could you do in three hours? What could you change? What could you fix?<p>

Not enough. Not damn near enough.

"One more time." Shisui was dragging his nails up and down Itachi's bare arm, raising goose bumps. Itachi didn't bother protesting. He didn't mind it. He leaned his cheek against Shisui's shoulder and kicked the map away.

"I know it already. I know what to do." Itachi closed his eyes, and the image of the hospital blueprint burned into his eyelids so that he saw it even with his eyes closed. He smelled Shisui. His scent was just a little off, soured slightly from pain and stress and something else. Itachi expected Shisui to reach for the map and demand they go over it one more time.

Shisui sighed. The loss of air seemed to leave him frighteningly depleted. His hand never stopped moving up and down Itachi's arm. This waiting...this game of patience was killing them both. Itachi tottered back and forth between his resolve. He knew, in his head, that in the next four hours or so, he would kill his cousin. The thought was hollow dread, but nothing more. He didn't actually believe it yet. He couldn't. How did you believe something like that?

"Is there something you want to say?" Shisui asked.

"I hate you for being right all the time." Itachi felt the soft 'huff' that was Shisui's obligatory laugh. Silence crept over them. Itachi felt his eyes glaze. Did he think time would stop for them if they did nothing? If they said nothing?

But what more was there to say?

"Are you sure? No long kept secrets or things you've always been afraid to tell me?" Shisui asked. The silence seemed to rattle him. Itachi breathed out. He searched his mind for anything he'd ever kept from his cousin. It was hard. His thoughts were lethargic, and he really had never kept much from Shisui to begin with.

"I poisoned Megiku."

"You little brat..." Shisui actually snickered. "I liked her."

"She was a snob." Itachi felt Shisui pinch his arm hard enough to bruise. Itachi opened his eye and looked at the red mark. When it faded...when it was gone...

"You were jealous," Shisui countered. His fingers smoothed over the to-be bruise, not really in apology. Silence again.

"I think I might have fallen in love with you if we'd gotten older." Shisui's knuckles went up and down Itachi's arm. The repetitive motion was soothing.

"You can't measure anything by how you feel now. You know that." Itachi closed his eyes again. Touch had never been so electric, speech so complex. There were so many different parts that wove together to make the whole. Everything felt richer, but at the same time grey and bleak. This was the end. The final act in their tragedy.

"I was already obsessed. How far is love from that?" Shisui drew a hand through Itachi's hair. The tangles were gone now. Shisui had braided it back and tied it with a ribbon when they'd started going over the maps. The little bell was trapped between Itachi's back and the couch.

"Far. You're a narcissist. I'm you. You're the one who made me what I am."

"No...no, you made yourself. I just watched and held your head above the water." Shisui's fingers curled in Itachi's hair. He buried his face in it. Itachi let the silence slide back in until it had filled him up to all his corners and crevices. It was a good silence, like a sweet meal or heavy drink. There was nothing more to say, but a lifetime of things that wouldn't be spoken. How did you live a lifetime in less than three hours?

"One more time?" Itachi asked.

"Okay." Shisui's hand slid from his hair to brush his neck as it fell down. "One more time."

* * *

><p>"Here." Itachi set the jar with its two eyeballs on the counter.<p>

"Do they match exactly?" Shisui moved with a nervous energy now. His calm was destroyed, and Itachi struggled to keep his. While if Itachi broke down, he knew it would be anger and despair that leaked out, Shisui seemed consumed with a starkly manic cheer that made him smile like a skull.

"No, but they only have a slight variation in central coloring, which is good enough for the purpose. I don't think anyone but me would notice." Itachi pulled off the lab coat he'd worn, dismantling the henge of a doctor.

"Aaaaw, you spend a lot of time staring deeply into my eyes, don't you?" Shisui reached out and pinched Itachi's cheek.

"Yes, because I like to live dangerously that way." Itachi swatted Shisui's hand away. This was absurd. It didn't even feel real anymore. Shisui wasn't helping. Itachi loved him for it. "Are you ready?"

Shisui nodded. "I've got the Kotoamatsukami set up. You remember what I told you?"

"It will take ten years to recharge-why is that?" Itachi tried not to think about what he was going to do. He had the eyes-two of them. Now...now...

"Because, my chakra ticks in increments of ten. I started using ten years after Dad's death, but could only use it every ten months, then every ten weeks, ten days, ten hours..." Shisui shrugged. "It's a genjutsu, so it's more linked to my mind and the limits I put on it than anything else. Without my chakra to feed it, or my mind, it will take ten years for the jutsu to remember itself after you use the stored jutsu I put in it. You won't be able to reset the purpose. It will only ever make someone protect Konoha."

"How are you so sure?" Itachi asked. He turned the jar, and the eyes bobbed obscenely up and down.

"Trust me, I'm sure." Shisui sat down and looked up at Itachi. "Do you have everything else?" Shisui smiled, but it seemed gruesome. Had his face always been so gaunt, or had the flesh melted off him in the past day? Maybe he was sick. Maybe his eye had gotten infected. Maybe he was being burned from the inside out by the fever fire in his flesh.

"I have them." Itachi pulled the roll of metal instruments from his shirt. They clanked and rattled. They sounded like metal bones. Bones ripped from children. Itachi swallowed and sat down across from Shisui. Shisui pulled out a glass case and a scroll he'd already inscribed with both his blood and Itachi's. It was only a temporary container, but the sight of it sent shivers down Itachi's spine.

"Ready?" Shisui's voice was breathless. Itachi wondered if he was frightened or excited. He wondered if there was a difference in this situation-this sick and morbid situation.

"No." Itachi opened the roll of instruments and looked down at them. "You're drugged, right?"

"As much as I can be and hold the jutsu." The Mangekyou was alive in Shisui's eye, burning and crawling all over Itachi skin as it spun. It held the most powerful genjutsu Itachi had ever heard of, and he looked at it without fear. Did he think Shisui would never put a genjutsu on him? Not entirely. He knew if Shisui did put a genjutsu on him, then it would be for his own good. Shisui always did the right thing.

Itachi swallowed.

"Try not to damage the eye at all, and cause as little trauma to the surrounding tissue as possible." Shisui's lecturing tone reminded Itachi of the hours Shisui had spent teaching him, as if this was just another technique to master. There was nothing odd about all of this.

Nothing at all.

"I know." The medical instrument in his hand looked like something for torture. Someone had kept it clean and wickedly sharp. In the right hands, this was no doubt deadly. In the wrong hands too, come to think of it.

"Try to seal the left eye in as soon as possible. They're dead, but they might graft better if you try soon," Shisui flicked his fingers towards the sealed jar of plain grey eyes. Itachi nodded. Swallowed.

"I'm not a medic."

Shisui nodded.

"It will hurt."

Shisui's lips curved into a wider smile. "I swear not to scream."

Itachi rose to his knees and shifted the instrument in his sweating hand. He reached out and pried Shisui's eyelids open, holding his breath and he looked down into Shisui's red, burning eye for the last time.

* * *

><p>He'd connected the eyes imperfectly. While a skilled medic could replace lost eyes and make the new ones function, Itachi couldn't. He'd blinded his cousins. Now Shisui saw with his feet and his hands as he groped along the ground. Now he was wracked with the pain of his missing eyes, plagued by phantom images of light and faces.<p>

Getting Shisui down to the river-the Nakano, their river-was hell. Itachi's heart was in his throat the entire time. They moved with awkward slowness, stumbling down streets like drunken lovers, weaving in and out of the light and patterned darkness of the compound. At moments, time seemed to drag and stretch, then it would snap, rushing past Itachi and almost throwing him to the ground.

They slid down the muddy bank, Shisui slipping and falling, pulling Itachi down with them. They rolled across the flat, shoving away from each other. Itachi fell into the river. For a moment, the water closed cold over his head. He tasted the green fish rot in his mouth and then came up coughing. He realized Shisui was calling his name, scrambling his hands over the wet ground, looking for his cousin, afraid to come to close to the water's edge.

Afraid to drown.

"I'm here. I'm okay." Itachi coughed and floundered out of the water. Everything felt fragmented. He wiped his wet hands on his shirt and stared at the pattern left behind. The smell of the river seemed to overcome him. Itachi took a deep breath and moved to touch Shisui's shoulder, glad his cousin couldn't see his face or the sick expression on it.

"Are you okay?" Itachi feared the eyes had come loose, but they twitched impotently in Shisui's skull. He couldn't see, he couldn't properly move them. Itachi wanted to pop them out and throw them in the river. Itachi's hands were now shaking as he touched Shisui's chin. Shisui managed a smile. Managed it as if it was easy. Itachi was falling apart, but Shisui still stood strong enough to hold up them both.

"Better than ever." Shisui gripped Itachi's wrists, and Itachi pulled him up. Shisui walked close to Itachi, slowly down the river bank to one little bend they both knew very well. It seemed fitting.

"You don't have to lie to make me feel better." Itachi hissed.

"If I lied, would you feel better?" Shisui nudged Itachi with and elbow. "I made this decision for myself, Itachi. You had nothing to do with it."

"No, I'm just the grim executioner. Your accomplice. I'm completely innocent." Itachi stopped. There was no moon, but all the stars were out. Dew covered the grass, and the summer air weighed heavy on Itachi's shoulders. He breathed it in through his nose, each breath viscous, crawling down his throat and sticking in his lungs. Shisui slid his arm from around Itachi and took three wobbling steps. He sank down into the grass and sighed.

"Make sure my eyes stay open, so the deterioration won't be so odd." Shisui turned his blind face towards Itachi. It was unnerving.

"And don't let them keep my body too long. You'll have to carry out the massacre soon, so they don't have time to figure out about my eyes-and after that destroy my body. Make sure no one ever gets any of my body, okay?" Shisui reached blindly for Itachi. Itachi offered his hand and let himself be pulled down into the grass. It soaked into his knees. He imagined he could smell the rot of Shisui's fake eyes from where he knelt. The swelling wasn't bad. People might believe it was all true. They had to.

Shisui pulled Itachi's forehead to his own. His hand was steady. His breathing was calm. Itachi could almost taste it in his own mouth. Shisui squeezed the back of Itachi's neck. Itachi closed his eyes, just as blind as Shisui for a moment. Let him be blind instead. Let him drown instead of his cousin.

Let Shisui live.

"Tachi."

Shisui breathed out. His hand fell away from Itachi's neck.

"The longer I'm in the water, the better it will be."

Itachi swallowed and nodded. He allowed himself to lean against Shisui for a moment longer, then he pulled away. Shisui stood again and walked towards the water. He slipped down the banks into the river, splashing up to his knees and almost falling before he regained his feet. Shisui steadied himself and turned to Itachi. He held out his arms and smiled.

"Come on. It's time."

Itachi placed his hands on Shisui's shoulders; Shisui gripped Itachi's hips and lifted him. Shisui stepped back into the current. His arms folded up, lowering Itachi down into the water. It was cold. The current pulled at his legs, trying to drag him down. Shisui led him unerringly out into the deeper water. The river bed fell out from under Shisui. His head dropped to the level of Itachi's collarbones.

"Deep enough?" Shisui's hands gripped Itachi's sides sharply. Itachi still had his hands on Shisui's shoulders. The river current was strong. The water came only to Itachi's hips. Itachi breathed in, listening to the flow of the water around them. Itachi slid his hands in, placing his thumbs over the double pulses of Shisui's carotid arteries. His hands shook. His body quaked and his mind suddenly realized what he was doing. He was killing his cousin. He was murdering Shisui.

He couldn't do it. He wouldn't There was no way he could go through with this. He couldn't He couldn't. It wasn't physically _possible_.

"Don't freak out on me now, Itachi. Don't you dare." As always, Shisui knew what was going on in Itachi's head. "It's too late for that."

Shisui was a blind ninja, soon to be missing-nin. He was as good as dead. Shisui gripped Itachi's shirt and pulled him down. "If you make me kill myself for you, this won't mean anything. Don't do this for Konoha, don't do this for yourself. Do this for me."

Shisui pulled Itachi down further, rising from the water, his blind lips pressed into Itachi's. It was warmth and love. The soul was in the breath, Itachi remembered in that instant and discarded his view that the soul was in the eyes. The burning press of his cousin's mouth to his own suffused his entire body with a hot flush of assurance and ate away at the dread and disgust in him. He could feel Shisui resolve. He could drink it in and make it his own. He opened his mouth to do so, or maybe it was to cry. _For me. Do it for me._

Itachi's lips felt cold as Shisui's slipped away.

Shisui went under the water without a sound. Itachi's hands held him in place, and Shisui's hands held Itachi's firm on his throat. While Itachi pressed his thumbs hard into the double pulses in Shisui's throat, Shisui opened his mouth and gulped down the first breath himself. His body convulsed once in a spontaneous cough, but nothing more as he gulped down more water. He passed out in under ten seconds, but he body never broke the surface. He never struggled.

Uchiha Shisui died silently.

The burning pain started after Shisui had been under water two minutes. Itachi blinked away the sudden blur across his vision. He made sure Shisui's sightless eyes were open, and then turned Shisui face down in the river. Itachi gripped the back of Shisui's shirt with white knuckles and stared down at the body the river tried to pull out of his grasp.

The body.

His cousin.

His Shisui.

Itachi choked, and his body convulsed. He fell under the water, and his hands spasmed, letting Shisui drift away. Itachi's wide open eyes caught a glimpse of Shisui's body floating away, carried by the current far away from here. Away from Itachi. Another convulsion ripped through Itachi. His body curled in on itself, and the water tumbled him head over heels. His head was on fire. Someone had driven a spike through his skull. Someone had gouged out his eyes. He tried to scream, but only choked. He was drowning, and Shisui's death had been for nothing. He was dying...

He was vomiting on the river back. His limbs gave out, and only the strong hold on his hair kept him from falling face first in his own filth. Another hand grabbed his shirt and pulled him away from the vomit. Itachi couldn't move. Even the darkness seemed too bright to his eyes. Tears were coursing down his face. Shisui was dead. Shisui was dead. Itachi had killed him. Drowned him in their river.

Madara dropped Itachi in the grass. Itachi lay and almost smothered before he weakly flipped himself over. He found himself looking into the bare face of his teacher. Madara's red eye took him in, the covered socket of his other eye glaring down like an ill omen.

Itachi felt the withered old hand on his face. "Aaah, the Mangekyou. I always knew you would be my best protégé, little one." No cripple. He'd never call Itachi a cripple again. "Now that you've broken your cage, how high will you fly?" There was greed in that voice, and the promise for more power than Itachi could imagine. This man...this terror would teach Itachi to be just like him.

Itachi caught Madara's wrist in an iron grip. Something thicker than tears ran down his face. "You're going to help me kill them."

"Beg pardon?" But a wicked grin split the man's face, vicious teeth still sharp enough to rip and tear out a man's throat. His lips weren't blackened with poison at all, but pink and mobile.

"You want your revenge? What could be better than helping the clan's own genius kill them all? What better way to show them how _soft_they are then to let your protégé kill them." Itachi voice was hoarse. He heard Shisui's own rasp in it, the deep husk of a voice matured. Itachi had come into himself tonight. He'd come into murder.

"So much anger for Konoha's righteous little warrior, what would your cousin say?" Madara's bass chuckled shook his wrist, vibrated into Itachi's arm.

Itachi didn't smile. He didn't think he could. "I think it would be an excellent test of my new power." Itachi slid his hand from Madara's and stood. He felt the burning pain of the Mangekyou, and how it greedily tugged at his chakra. "I want them to see what happens when they try to control something stronger than themselves." Itachi rubbed at his face and looked down at his bloody hands.

Madara looked up at him with a mix of pride and wicked delight. How fun would this be for him? How would he enjoy twisting another young mind into his own image?

"We start tonight." Itachi rubbed the tacky blood in between his fingers. He didn't have much time. Shisui rotted in the river tonight. "You'll teach me how to control it tonight, and tomorrow night, we kill them." Itachi took a deep breath and hoped the weakness running through him didn't show.

* * *

><p>Itachi supposed, if he were generous, he could say Shisui's plan lasted almost twenty-four hours before things had fallen apart. They hadn't counted on poison. Those with children had grown up during the War, and had all the paranoia to go with it. When an unknown figure threatened, what did they do? They saved the children.<p>

Itachi had seen a mother no older than Shisui slit her two year-old's throat to keep it out of his hands. Maybe, if Shisui had been there, he would have been faster. Maybe someone would have survived. Maybe. Maybe—

None of it mattered. The plan was in motion. The children were dead. It was time to salvage what could be saved.

Hours later, Itachi sat in the streets, clutching Sasuke's limp body to him. He rocked back and forth, humming under his breath. Humming a lullaby as he smoothed Sasuke's hair under his hand. He'd done it. He'd made Sasuke hate him. There was no way Sasuke could doubt that Itachi had killed their clan, and that he was a demon. He'd done it all. Almost.

"Regrets?" Madara's blood covered hands brushed over Itachi's head. Itachi tipped his head back and looked up and Madara. The man's orange mask was smattered with blood. Itachi looked past him to the sky. There was no moon. The stars were out. Itachi could hear the rush of water in his ears over his own humming.

"Regrets are for the dead." Itachi felt the curl of the ancient's hand on the back of his head. Itachi slowly rose to his feet, his little brother still in his arms.

"Ah, you saved your future." Madara's voice was cracked with a wicked smile.

"Yes, my light." Itachi looked down at Sasuke's slack face. He looked into the face of his killer, and all he felt was love. Love and sorrow. Had Shisui felt this way? Had he wanted to cry and laugh all at once?

"My hope." Itachi whispered those words and turned from Madara. He carried Sasuke softly across the blood soaked ground and back to bed. The ANBU would find him in the morning before he woke up. The massacre had been accomplished. The Uchiha were cleansed.

Itachi was the demon to be hated and destroyed.


	4. The Final Shape

When Itachi walked out of the Hokage's office, dawn was still hours away. Danzou walked beside Itachi, not half as chastised as he had pretended to be during the lecture. Itachi was still dappled with blood, though he had washed his hands. The Hokage's ANBU guards had been dismissed, and, for once, even Danzou's bodyguards had always been left behind. So precious was the secret—so ruinous the deed.

Itachi listened for a moment as he walked. He ran through the structure of the hall in his mind and counted the steps he'd taken. He decided he was far enough from the Hokage's room. Old as Danzou was, he remained fast enough to turn and ready himself as Itachi moved. He didn't get far. Itachi slammed the old man's shoulder into the wall, and then buried a kunai hilt deep in the wall just shy of Danzou's right eye-conveniently under wraps.

Itachi smiled. He could smell the sweat on Danzou. The fear, even though the man tried to hide it. Itachi could see it all. Sense it all.

"You're going to kill me, after you swore to protect Konoha?" Danzou's voice was gravelly. Itachi wondered how Madara had kept his so smooth, though it had gone hollow through the ages.

"Oh, no, not now, Danzou-san." Itachi let his hand slide from the hilt of the kunai, and he touch the right side of Danzou's face. The contact sent shivers of revulsion down his spine, but he only smiled. His fingers stroked the bandages, but Danzou didn't dare move. Itachi felt the rush of something. Power. Control. He almost wanted to laugh with it.

Itachi knew if he made a move, Danzou would try to kill him. He also knew that if Danzou used Shisui's eye so soon, he'd likely kill himself. Without the eye, Danzou was no match for Itachi. No one was now. Shisui had made him untouchable.

"But, one day..." Itachi leaned closer. "One day, Konoh won't need you anymore, Danzou-san. One day, you will be obsolete, and that day..." Itachi let the happy sing-song of his voice play over the words as Madara had. His skin, he knew, radiated unnatural heat. His voice was silk and cream. He knew the shuddering feeling that crawled down Danzou's spine. Knew the shudder of the oil slick fingers of suggestion sliding painfully under skin, making you want to scratch until you were raw. This art of intimidation did not live in the mind of the victim, but in every part of them.

"I won't kill you." The words were breathless. Hollow. Perhaps age did not hollow a voice. "Oh, no, not that day, or the next...Ojii-sama told me he kept a man alive and in torment for a month. I think I can double that." Itachi bared his teeth less like a smile.

It was too much. Danzou had a knife in hand, but Itachi was across the hall. "Until then, I'll practice just for you. Maybe I'll put on a henge and make you believe it's Shisui come back from the grave who torments you. Maybe I'll pluck my cousin's eye from your face and bring Shisui back to torment you himself." Did genjutsu have to pass through the eyes? Itachi didn't know, but as he vanished from the hall, the look of hate and rage and fear on Danzou's face told him one thing. The man would never sleep well again.

"How you grow in the space of a night, my little one." Madara, sated from his kills, sat waiting for Itachi in the deserted streets. Madara had gorged. Itachi felt like he had been purged, but of everything good and healthful.

"I'm not yours." Itachi wiped the blood from his face. It flaked off like a lepers skin.

"Oh, then who's are you, little one?" Madara's fingers curled against his mask. His nails were black. His hands were white and clean. His knuckles were the knobs of an old man's knuckles.

Itachi blinked. He pushed his hair back behind his head and heard the soft jingle of a bell buried in his ponytail. "The ANBU will be here soon."

"Yes, ANBU." Madara stood, jerky and smooth in an eye twisting way. "And you have your new comrades to meet, my pet."

_Mine. Mine. Mine._

Madara extended a hand. "Come."

Itachi's ninto drove six inches into the ground. Madara curled his unbloodied hand closer to his chest. Itachi met the old man's visible eye.

"I'll meet you at the temple at dawn." Itachi pulled the sword from the ground and wiped it clean before he turned and walked away. The night's work wasn't over yet.

* * *

><p>It had been twenty four hours, and the jutsu to preserve his corpse had faded. Uchiha burned their dead. The smell-the sight of Shisui's body, decaying was...<p>

An offense. A wound. To be repulsed by something to loved and cherished wasn't something Itachi thought he would ever truly get over. Still, he carried the corpse cradled against him, ignoring the stench. His mind grew numb as he walked, but his body never faltered. This, he saw, would be the way he lived his life. The daze would be his friend in the years to come.

Using a jutsu to build the pyre might have been easier. It, perhaps, would have looked neater. Itachi wouldn't cheat that way. He spent the hours carefully twisting and molding the materials into the shape he wanted. The rough wood cut his fingers, and he bled. He bled all over the pyre, drying drops of red and brown. He stuck into it the few flowers and decorative grasses he could find. It looked childish and meager, but Itachi came to this as a child. A lost child who'd lost everything that mattered to him.

He spoke as he worked. Spoke to the dead and the water that lapped at the bank. He spoke to the corpse, which moldered by his feet. He spoke to the stars in the sky as the dimmed and died. He spoke to the pyre, the flowers, everything and anything that couldn't hear. He spoke until his voice grew rough and cracked because he knew he's never speak another unguarded word.

Dawn had come by the time Itachi settled Shisui's body on the pyre. He slowly, gently, walked Shisui out into the water. Mist rose from the water, cloaking them, isolating and muffling every sound. Itachi's hand rested on the side of the raft. Shisui's cold fingers rested against Itachi's. Itachi took a moment to look at the corpse-to look at Shisui.

Shisui: his cousin; his brother; his love; his friend; his everything. Dead. Cold. Rotting.

The tears finally started. Itachi's body shook as he leaned down and pressed his aching lips to the cold flesh. His heart hammered and tried to break itself on his ribs.

"You have made me untouchable."

Itachi set the pyre alight with black flame. He stood waist deep in water and watched the river carry Shisui away. They were three miles downstream from where Shisui had drowned. A mile and a half from where they had found his body yesterday morning. The sun broached the tree line, and the black flame had eaten Shisui's body away into nothing. It would dissolve his very essence, and only his eyes and will would live on. Only that.

No one must ever know it, but Itachi must never forget.

By mid-morning Itachi would be meeting his new comrades as a cold killer. Now, at dawn, he hugged his arms around himself and cried for the last time. The tears mixed with blood and he shook with every breath. It hurt. He thought, as he struggled for each gasping cry, he might die with it. He might drown. He might. He would. Please, please, just let him. Wasn't this enough? Wasn't this already too much?

_You're stronger than that._

Itachi pulled himself from the water and sat on the bank. He stared out at nothing and waited for the sun to dry him. The sun, weak as it was, shone warm on his skin. The day promised to be beautiful and bright. Itachi wondered if he'd ever stop feeling cold, and if the sight of a river would ever stop making him feel sick.


End file.
